love poems

Pass thy hand through my hair, lore;
One little year ago,
In a curtain bright and rare, love,
It fell golden o'er my brow.
But the gold has passed away, love,
And the drooping curls are thin,
And cold threads of wintry gray, love,
Glitter their folds within:
How should this be, in one short year?
It is not age--can it be care?

Fasten thine eyes on mine, love;
One little year ago,
Midsummer's sunny shine, love,
Had not a warmer glow.

The hours are past, love,
Oh, fled they not too fast, love!
Those happy hours, when down the mountain side,
We saw the rosy mists of morning glide,
And, hand in hand, went forth upon our way,
Full of young life and hope, to meet the day.

The hours are past, love,
Oh, fled they not too fast, love!
Those sunny hours, when from the mid-day heat,
We sought the waterfall with loitering feet,
And o'er the rocks that lock the gleaming pool,
Crept down into its depths, so dark and cool.

A maiden meek, with solemn, steadfast eyes,
Full of eternal constancy and faith,
And smiling lips, through whose soft portal sighs
Truth's holy voice, with ev'ry balmy breath;
So journeys she along life's crowded way,
Keeping her soul's sweet counsel from all sight;
Nor pomp, nor vanity, lead her astray,
Nor aught that men call dazzling, fair, or bright:
For pity, sometimes, doth she pause, and stay
Those whom she meeteth mourning, for her heart
Knows well in suffering how to bear its part.

I would I knew the lady of thy heart!
She whom thou lov'st perchance, as I love thee,--
She unto whom thy thoughts and wishes flee;
Those thoughts, in which, alas! I bear no part.
Oh, I have sat and sighed, thinking how fair,
How passing beautiful, thy love must be;
Of mind how high, of modesty how rare;
And then I've wept, I've wept in agony!
Oh, that I might but once behold those eyes,
That to thy enamour'd gaze alone seem fair;
Once hear that voice, whose music still replies
To the fond vows thy passionate accents swear:

Hail the implacable Iconoclast
Whose images of ivory and gold
Make proud the dust that his enthusiast
In her dark trance may very God behold.
From the clear music of his delicate
Peripheries and porches of delight
He draws her down through cruel gate on gate,
Through immemorial, blind, implacable rite
That strips her of her dream-branched veils of youth,
And naked, agonised like trodden grapes,
Drags her before the imperishable Truth,
The flaming Ecstacy wherefrom he shapes

Ah! what if thy last canticle be said,
Bright Archer of illusion adored of old,
Thou dream-fast Love in raiment burning-red,
Wreathed with white doves, quivered with burning gold?
Pass with thy Triumph of Lovers, Aucassin,
Tristram, and Pharamond, and Lancelot,
Dante, and Rudel, all thy haughty kin,
Princes in that high heaven, as we are not.--
With some gilt couchant sphinx both casqued and crowned,
All mailed in amethyst the new god comes,
Whose brooding beautiful eyes at last have found

Not so, my Soul? Rather for thee the fate
Of those hieratic Carthaginian queens
Who needs must vanish through the gods' own gate,
Even holy Flame, with music and great threnes
Idolatrous, as on soft gorgeous wings,
If Time's least kiss had subtly disallowed
Their beauty's sacred unisons?--Fair things
Desire their revel-raiment be their shroud.
Yet, fierce insurgent, cease vain wars to wage!
Art thou so pure as to decline, forsooth,
These penitential usages of age
That expiate proud cruelties of youth,

Have these forgotten they are toys of Death
That in his sad aphelions of desire
They still regret the joy that perisheth,
And Spring's great reveries that exceed and tire,--
Faintly accusing Love's unmercied yokes
With almost wanton grace, the craft and art
Of precious frailty that with subtle strokes
Of sweetness finds the core of Passion's heart?
They carry fans and mirrors, or make fast
The mournful flute-like cadence of a veil.
Slight fans that winnowed souls, mirrors that glassed

Why should a woman find her dream of love
Irised by the strange ecstasy of Art?
Is not Eros a terrible lord enough
That she must bear both Hunters of the heart,
The Golden Archer and the Scarlet too?
Then bitter anomalies annul her choir
Of puissant and subtle instincts, rended through
By gorgeous dualisms of vain-desire.
For Love outrages Art's clear disciplines,
And Art lures Love to guilt of cryptic treason:
The spirit of imagination pines,
Captive in webs of exquisite unreason.

Oh, sunny Love!
Crowned with fresh flowering May,
Breath like the Indian clove,
Eyes like the dawn of day;
Oh, sunny Love!

Oh, fatal Love!
Thy robe wreath is nightshade all,
With gloomy cypress wove,
Thy kiss is bitter gall,
Oh, fatal Love!